Harry Gural, president of the Van Ness South Tenants Association, yesterday submitted a notice to the Rental Housing Commission that he will appeal a decision by the DC Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) in an eight-year rent case.
The announcement may come as a surprise to those following the case, because the final decision by OAH ordered Equity Residential to pay Gural $59,888 for past overcharges.
However, Gural had long argued that DC law mandates that the housing provider pay three times the amount of the overcharges if they were made in bad faith.
“(a) Any person who knowingly (1) demands or receives any rent for a rental unit in excess of the maximum allowable rent applicable to that rental unit under the provisions of subchapter II of this chapter, or (2) substantially reduces or eliminates related services previously provided for a rental unit, shall be held liable by the Rent Administrator or Rental Housing Commission, as applicable, for the amount by which the rent exceeds the applicable rent charged or for treble that amount (in the event of bad faith) and/or for a roll back of the rent to the amount the Rent Administrator or Rental Housing Commission determines.”
This central part of the case depends on whether Equity Residential acted in bad faith when it charged Gural more than $50,000 over eight years. (Gural was forced to pay “only” $31,000 into escrow under an order in Superior Court.)
DC law (§42–3502.08) states that in rent-stabilized apartment buildings like 3003 Van Ness, the landlord can charge an annual rent increase calculated by multiplying the current rent by a figure equal to inflation (CPI-W) plus 2%. For example, if the current rent is $2,000 per month and the inflation rate is 3%, the maximum rent increase would be $2,000 x (3% + 2%) = $100. The new maximum rent would be $2,100.
Nevertheless, evidence shows that Equity Residential had inaccurately listed Gural’s current rent as an amount that far exceeded his actual rent paid, and then demanded a rent increase based on this higher amount — demanding a rent increase of $365. In fact, the maximum rent increase by law was $65.
Equity Residential argues that it could not possibly have known how to calculate rent increases under DC law, and that it could calculated rent increases based on falsely reported amounts that far exceed the amount actually paid.
Evidence introduced by Gural shows that Equity had frequently demanded of other tenants rent increases that exceeded $1,000 per month.
Former Attorney General Karl Racine won $1 million award for residents of 3003 Van Ness for this practice. Nevertheless, Equity Residential continued to argue that it could not possibly know that it was overcharging Gural even after the 2021 decision in the Attorney General’s case.
For this reason and others related to charges of retaliation, Gural submitted his Notice of Appeal to the Rental Housing Commission, the three-person panel which serves as the appellate body for rental housing cases.
It appears that the eight-year case will drag on.